blame it on tooth ache

Thanks to MTX, my gums are sore and open and hence the tooth ache has been coming and going, spreading to the upper jaw into the phantom pain I experienced four years ago after the great dentist disaster that stopped me from hiking in the Golden Triangle hills with S and instead catapulted me helter skelter into the oral surgery nightmare summer of 2007. It seems that life has dealt me this card again. 

But mercyfully my doctor agreed that this is one shit load too many and so my box of pills has two more additions: one to alleviate the inflamed gums and one to handle the phantom pain. I wish these monsters would act instantly but no, patience is what's called for. And I have run out of this kind of virtue so long ago.

Sleep is a rare and precious gift these nights, a fickle one though and last night I spent much time alternatingly making up dream scenarios in full aching wakefulness or concentrating on the soles of my feet whenever the drilling pain in my gummy upper jaws seemed to spin me out of control. Those dear soles of my feet, with all mental efforts available I made them tingle and glow for most of the night.

During the days I am irritable and cranky. Working was the highlight and I feel dead proud for sticking it out even on days when all I want to do is run and hide. My in-trays are all neatly stacked now and priorities settled and long overdues over and done. Before I lock up for the night, I glance back over my shoulder and, wow, does my desk look good!!

On the home office front, I have started an assigement for a feminist/sociologist crowd translating a long essay on subsistence and autonomy - really good stuff - which is starting to become really frustrating. Frustrating because the two women I deal with are a) computer illiterate whereby anything beyond typing is wonderland, b) scatterbrains, charming but grrr! and c) never on time. They are both older than me, honoured academics, well travelled and well connected in the global feminist ecology network but when I try to teach show them the wonders of editing in word, they smile and clap their hands as if we were in nursery school discovering the miracle of how the red Lego stones fit on top of the white ones - every time anew.

I am probably certainly absolutely unfair now and way off the mark, blame it on tooth ache.

Yes, let's blame it all on tooth ache. All. ALL.